Wavy-handled jar with spatter decoration

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As the Predynastic Period progressed, a new style of pottery emerged, made of hard, buff-colored desert clay and decorated with reddish brown paint. The spatter pattern on the jar seen here imitates the mottling of a hard stone such as diorite. The shape of this jar was widely popular, featuring...

As the Predynastic Period progressed, a new style of pottery emerged, made of hard, buff-colored desert clay and decorated with reddish brown paint. The spatter pattern on the jar seen here imitates the mottling of a hard stone such as diorite. The shape of this jar was widely popular, featuring a tall, ovoid body and characteristic wavy, horizontal ledge handles. Wavy-handled jars continued to be produced in both stone and pottery well into the Early Dynastic Period, but they gradually lost their shouldered or ovoid shape, developing into the elegant cylindrical jars of Dynasties 1 and 2.